


closing in, closer to you (this could take all night)

by anyadisee



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, girls talking about things and realizing things, some subtle flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 19:45:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9087538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anyadisee/pseuds/anyadisee
Summary: Sara sighs. Maybe she should go back in there and talk to Phichit more? How does one date, anyway?“I don’t even know how to start this dating thing, to be honest,” she admits.“Well,” Mila says, tone casual, “we can start by exchanging numbers.”..[in which sara wants to date but doesn't know where to begin, and mila gladly helps her out]





	

**Author's Note:**

> it's been so long since i wrote f/f fic and as a lesbian i feel ashamed but i'm going to try and make up for it starting with this um
> 
> i hope it's alright??

“The party’s inside, you know.”

Startled, Sara looks up from her almost-empty champagne flute and finds Mila leaning out of the doorway that leads to the hall’s balcony, smiling in that usual friendly manner of hers. She’s holding tall glasses of something pink and bubbly in both hands, and Sara relaxes again.

“Mind if I join you?” Mila asks.

Sara shakes her head and waves at all the unoccupied space of the balcony. “Go ahead, there’s plenty of room out here.”

“Awesome.” Mila steps out into the cold evening air and doesn’t even shiver, even though she’s wearing nothing but her cocktail dress. Sara herself, while being more or less used to the cold by now, has put on a coat on top of her long dress, but Mila takes on the weather like a warrior. “You’re missing out on the party happenings.”

Sara laughs and accepts the glass Mila offers her, setting the champagne flute down on the floor once it’s empty. “Since when did these banquets turn into parties?” She peers into the glass. “And what’s this?”

“Since Yuuri did his thing last year with the dance-offs,” Mila answers, “and I have no idea. There was a punch bowl on the table and it looked pretty, so I grabbed a glass. It tastes sweet and fruity, if that helps?”

Sara sniffs delicately at the glass. “ _Smells_ fruity, too. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Cheers to that!” Mila raises her drink even though she’s already sipped a third of it, and Sara smiles, indulging the younger skater and clinking their glasses together. They stand there, leaning against the balcony railing for a comfortably quiet minute, listening to the noises floating out into the evening air from inside the main hall. The music is definitely louder and more upbeat this year, and there seems to be a lot of voices either yelling or singing horrendously off-key.

“Sounds like it’s getting pretty wild in there,” Sara notes.

“Like I said.” Mila takes a sip of her drink and smiles, just a quirk at the corner of her lips. “It’s a party.” She lifts an eyebrow at Sara, tucking away strands of hair that has fallen over her eyes. “What are you doing out here by yourself, anyway?”

Sara shrugs. She was taking selfies with Phichit Chulanont just twenty or so minutes ago, acutely aware of her brother watching like a hawk from the sidelines. At least Emil is doing a good job of keeping Mickey from actually barging over and literally putting himself in between Sara and every other skater in the room. “I just needed a quick break, I think.”

“Am I interrupting?” Mila asks immediately. Genuinely. She’s very sweet, Sara thinks.

“Don’t worry, you’re fine,” she says. “Thank you for the drink, by the way.”

“No problem,” Mila says, back to being her bubbly self. She’s wearing pink again this year, and her smile is colored the same. She’s like the drink they’re sharing, Sara thinks in amusement.

Viktor Nikiforov suddenly appears by the doorway, looking remarkably flushed but happy. “Mila!” he exclaims, before his gaze finds Sara. His expression changes slightly and his eyes seem to sparkle, something like a smirk coloring the smile on his face. Sara is slightly confused by this. “Sara, you’re there as well! Hello.”

“Hi Viktor,” she says, waving.

Mila simply lifts her glass in greeting.

“I was going to ask whether you wanted to join in on the dance battle, but I see you’re busy.” There’s something else in Viktor’s tone that Sara detects but can’t quite determine. It sounds knowing and somewhat teasing, but she can’t figure out anything about the current situation that warrants that kind of reaction from Viktor. Maybe he’s just really like that? He _can_ be quite a dork sometimes, Sara has recently discovered, especially when in the presence of one Katsuki Yuuri.

She turns to Mila to tell her that it’s alright if she wants to go back into the party, when Mila gestures at her half-empty glass to Viktor and says, “Maybe after I finish my drink.”

“Alright,” Viktor responds cheerily. And then he waves a ‘see you later’ at them both, smiles too widely at Sara, _winks_ at Mila, and then disappears back into the main hall.

Sara blinks. “Um.”

“They really _are_ having a repeat of last year,” Mila muses. “Yuuri, you are a blessing.”

“You can go back in, if you want,” Sara says. “I don’t want to keep you from enjoying the banquet.”

“Oh, no,” Mila assures, smiling prettily at her, “I’m perfectly fine being here for the moment.” She winks. “I’m gonna let the guys warm up before I jump in and kick all of their asses.”

Sara lets out a startled kind of laugh at that, covering her mouth quickly and stifling the giggles that follow. Mila looks extremely pleased at her reaction, self-satisfied and slightly pink in the face. Inside, the upbeat music suddenly gets cut off, before being replaced by something a lot heavier that sounds like it’s been taken straight from a club DJ’s playlist.

“That’s slightly inappropriate,” Sara says, pulling her hand away from her mouth. She’s still smiling, though.

So is Mila. “I think things stopped being appropriate the moment Chris brought out a pole last year for Yuuri to dance on and they poured champagne everywhere.”

“True,” Sara agrees. “God, I can’t believe that happened.”

“Neither can I,” Mila nods. “But I’m glad it did.”

“Mickey was screaming so much when Yuuri hugged him after the Rostelecom Cup,” Sara recalls, giggling. “He probably remembered Yuuri on the stripper pole and had a major freak-out.”

“I heard about that from Yuri – our Russian Yuri,” Mila says, snorting. Then something settles over her expression, eyes looking thoughtful. “Say, tell me if I’m stepping over a line here, but I noticed you and Michele don’t hang out around each other as much anymore.”

Sara stiffens briefly at the mention, but immediately relaxes. She glances at Mila. “You noticed?”

Mila hums, nodding. Her drink dangles from strong-looking fingertips, held carelessly around the rim, and she’s staring at the doorway leading back into the hall. “You were crying during his free skate at the Rostelecom Cup, too.”

“Ah, well.” Sara takes a long sip from her own glass, letting out a sigh after. “I realized that if we kept relying on each other for literally every single thing, neither of us would be able to move forward.”

“You two _are_ …” Mila trails off, tilting her head slightly as though she’s searching for the word. Her red hair falls to the side with the shift, the movement drawing Sara’s eyes to an unobstructed view of the elegant line of Mila’s neck.

“Are?” Sara prods after a moment of silence, tearing her eyes away with a little effort, heart doing sudden confused flips.

Mila looks like she’s caught Sara looking, but doesn’t say anything about it other than a slight quirk of the lips. “Unusually close,” she settles on.

 _How is she not cold?_ Sara wonders, gaze falling further down to Mila’s mostly-exposed shoulders and arms, expecting there to be goosebumps at the very least. But she looks perfectly fine, unperturbed in the chill of the evening like some kind of ice goddess.

“We got into skating together,” Sara explains, focusing in on the conversation once more. “And we grew into the sport side by side.”

“I can’t really imagine what that’s like,” Mila says, though there’s no judgment in her tone. She sounds pondering, more than anything. “I don’t have any siblings, so maybe that’s why.”

“Maybe,” Sara says.

Mila turns her head and blinks slowly. “He still went to see you at the Final, though.”

Sara sighs. “I told him not to. It’s a good thing Emil tagged along, to be honest. Though Mickey probably thinks Emil wants to date me.”

Mila laughs, sudden and loud. Sara blinks at her, and Mila slaps a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking with repressed laughter. “Sorry,” she says after a while. “It’s just that – oh my god. Isn’t Emil into _Michele?_ ”

Understanding dawns on Sara, and she laughs as well. “Right? I thought so, too! At the Rostelecom Cup, Emil asked me to go out and grab a bite with him, and I was pretty sure he was gonna talk to me about Mickey. But then, well. Mickey kinda butted in and told Emil he had to beat him to get to me. Oh my god. My brother is _dense_.”

“I thought Emil was pretty obvious,” Mila says. “Maybe Michele is too obsessed with fighting off your suitors to realize he has some of his own. No offense, but please tell your brother to chill.”

“You know,” Sara says, absently swirling the liquid around in her glass, “I should definitely tell him that. I told him I’d start dating, so he should, too. Emil is a very nice guy. He could make Mickey loosen up more, have fun for himself and enjoy things without me being there, you know?”

Mila hums, shifting closer. Only slightly. Maybe she’s starting to get cold? “And you?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve already proven that you’re fine without him, skating-wise. You made it into the Final by yourself, after all.” Mila smiles a little. “But what about those other things you just mentioned? Having fun for yourself, enjoying things without Michele.”

Oh. That.

“I’m working on it,” Sara says after a moment. “Dating, like I mentioned, is on top of the list.” She thinks back on all of her interactions with Seung-gil and frowns a little. She hasn’t made any progress with him at all, especially since he’s been barely replying to her messages.

Not that she’s _really_ hang up about it, though. Seung-gil is cute, but he can be a little standoffish. Sara definitely wanted to at least grab dinner with him back at the Rostelecom Cup, but he had turned her down, and rather harshly at that. Even Sara knows to recognize when someone isn’t interested.

“I’ve never actually dated anyone before,” she admits.

“Really?” Mila sounds disbelieving. “Someone as pretty as you?”

“Mickey would fight them off,” Sara says. “Some boys would bully me when we were younger, so it kinda became a habit.”

“Boys can be pretty dumb,” Mila muses. “Some of them were mean to me and then told me they liked me soon after.”

“That’s why Mickey was so protective of me,” Sara says. Then, remembering what Mila said about not having siblings, she asks, “How did you deal with that?”

Mila grins. It looks… it looks attractive on her, Sara thinks. “I kicked their asses myself.”

Sara lets out another surprised laugh, but it comes out as a burst of breath. “Wow,” she says. Mila is pretty badass.

Still, the fact that no boy has ever gotten so much a conversation with her without Mickey’s obsessive supervision until now is proving to be a problem. Sara has interacted with some of the male skaters on her own over the course of the evening, but she doesn’t really know how to take it from there. The thing with Seung-gil did turn out to be a dead end, after all, so she maybe needs a new tactic.

Or maybe what she needs is a wider social circle that goes beyond competitive figure skating.

Why is everyone already taken with someone else, she wonders. Yuuri is pretty cute, too, but he’s head over heels in love with Viktor already, vice versa. They even have matching rings (Sara makes a mental note to be friendlier with Yuuri so she’ll get an invite to the wedding, because that is definitely something she would love to be a part of). Mickey would probably have a heart attack if she tried to get close to Christophe Giacometti. Otabek Altin’s free skate drew her in, but he seems a little hard to approach, and Sara doesn’t want a repeat of Seung-gil. Emil is already out of the question. Jean-Jacques Leroy is engaged, and Georgi Popovich seems like he’ll be as clingy as Mickey. Everyone else is too young.

She sighs. Maybe she should go back in there and talk to Phichit more? How does one _date_ , anyway?

“I don’t even know _how_ to start this dating thing, to be honest,” she admits.

“Well,” Mila says, tone casual, “we can start by exchanging numbers.”

Sara doesn’t immediately comprehend Mila’s statement, too lost in her own thoughts. When it finally sinks in, she turns not just her head but her entire body in a startled burst of movement, almost knocking down the champagne flute by her feet. “What?”

“Exchanging numbers,” Mila repeats, motioning a hand between the two of them. “That way we can set up a time and place to meet up for the date. Are you going back to Italy immediately after this?”

“I’m – no?” It comes out as a question. Sara is still confused.

“Great! How does dinner tomorrow sound?” Mila asks. Sara barely has time to process this before Mila is adding, “Or, wait. Is that too much for a first date? We could have coffee in the afternoon instead, keep it more casual for the first one. What do you think?”

Sara blinks. Then, “ _What?_ ” She stares at Mila and, seeing no trace of humor whatsoever on the younger girl’s face, she says, “You’re… you’re serious?”

“Yeah?” Mila says, and now _she_ sounds confused. “I’m asking you out on a date.”

“But,” Sara begins, trying to let the entire conversation catch up on her. “I – didn’t you have a boyfriend? That ice hockey player?”

“I broke up with him ages ago, though?” Mila says.

“You – you like boys, right?”

“Girls, too,” Mila says, shrugging. “I’ve been flirting with you this entire conversation. Haven’t you noticed?”

“What? Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Mila nods. Then she smiles, but it’s small. “Are you so against the idea of going on a date with me? I didn’t mean to be too forward or make you uncomfortable.”

“No, no,” Sara says, shaking her head quickly. “It’s not that, I’m just. Surprised, I guess? I didn’t think you were into girls, too. And that you’d be into me? Wow.”

“Well.” Mila’s smile turns bigger. “I am. Into you, I mean. Like, _really_ into you.” She pushes her hair from her face, and Sara’s eyes track the movement. “You and Michele just seemed really inseparable until now, and I didn’t know how to break into that. But since you said you wanted to grow independent from each other and be open to dating now, I thought I’d take my chance.” Her smile changes again, turning into something sincere. “You _are_ fine, though, right? I remember you crying at the Rostelecom Cup, and I got worried.”

Sara flushes at the memory and at Mila’s admission of concern, feeling touched. “I’m – yeah. I’m fine. That was immediately after I told Mickey that we should learn to be our own people, so I was in a pretty emotional state. But I’m really fine now.”

“I’m glad,” Mila says. Her cheeks are pink now, too, though Sara can’t tell if that’s because she’s feeling shy or if it’s because of the drinks. Maybe the cold really is finally affecting her? Should Sara offer her coat? “So, what do you say?”

Right. Mila is asking her out on a date. Oh my _gosh_. Mila wants to _date_ her. Sara can feel herself blushing. “Um.” She looks at Mila, and suddenly she’s noticing her neck again and the pink of her lip gloss and the dip of her dress down the front and oh, oh. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Mila asks.

“Um, yes. I’ll go out for coffee with you. Tomorrow,” Sara clarifies.

Mila positively _beams_. “Great! Should we exchange numbers? I don’t have my phone with me at the moment, though.”

Sara fumbles for her coat pockets, trying to locate hers. “I have mine. Just – hold on.” She lets out a successful ‘ah!’ when she finds it, unlocking the screen and handing it over to Mila. “You can put your contact info in and I’ll just send you a message tonight.”

“Awesome,” Mila says, typing in her details. When she hands it back, Sara sees that she put her name in with the sparkling heart emoji. It’s cute. Mila then downs the rest of her drink in one go, lets out a breath, and then smiles brilliantly at Sara once more. “Thank you for saying yes.”

Before Sara can say anything in reply, Mila steps close and kisses her on the cheek once. Sara feels her face pleasantly heat up at the small, brief touch.

“Now,” Mila continues once she’s pulled away, a mischievous glint in her eye, “I have a dance battle to conquer.”

For the third time that night, Mila manages to pull out a sudden, unexpected burst of laughter from Sara. Mila seems incredibly pleased by this, then she’s bowing exaggeratedly and walking backwards towards the doorway, blowing Sara kisses the entire time. Sara bites down on her smile and playfully waves her away.

Once Mila is out of sight, Sara turns around and presses a hand to her face, feeling the heat in her cheeks. She can’t stop smiling.

It takes a while for her to gather herself once more and rearrange her expression into something resembling normal. She picks up her empty champagne flute and drinks the rest of the drink Mila brought her, before stepping back into the fray of people now cheering around a makeshift dance floor. They seem to be doing the dance battle in pairs, an obviously-drunk Yuuri dipping a half-dressed Chris dangerously low versus a furiously-determined Yuri Plisetsky being spun by an ecstatic Mila. Off to the side, Viktor is yelling encouragement with his phone out, Otabek is stoically clapping along to the song that’s playing, and Phichit is documenting the entire thing on his phone.

Mickey suddenly appears by Sara’s side, looking harried. Faintly, Sara hears Emil yelling for her brother, and she stifles a laugh.

“Where have you been?” Mickey asks, running a hand through his hair.

Sara lifts an eyebrow. “Out on the balcony.”

“By yourself?”

“No,” Sara admits. “I was with Mila.”

“Oh.” Mickey seems to relax at this. “Babicheva? That’s good.”

Sara thinks for a second, before deciding that now’s a good time as any to tell her brother. “I also got myself a date.”

The range of expressions that flit over Mickey’s face in the span of five seconds is, frankly, hilarious. It eventually settles on something like shock. “What? With who?” He doesn’t let Sara answer and barrels on, “I knew I shouldn’t have let Emil distract me with strip poker”—Sara raises an eyebrow at this and files the information away to be looked into at a later time—“now someone’s gotten to you and… oh. Oh. It’s someone I know, isn’t it?” He starts looking around frantically, glaring at everyone in the room. “Which one is he? I bet I can take him on.”

Sara sighs and glances back at the dance battle. Both Chris and Yuuri look less dressed than when she last saw them, and Viktor is fanning himself wildly. Phichit is now holding _two_ phones, one taking videos and the other thumbing through some social media account, probably.

And then there’s Mila, lifting Yuri above her head, smiling effortlessly the entire while and still looking strikingly beautiful.

Sara smiles.

“No,” she tells Mickey, “Mila would beat you any time.”

She wishes she had her phone out to capture Mickey’s exact reaction to that, but oh well. She’s just going to have to be creative in her description later, when she texts Mila about it.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr and twitter @ anyadisee


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